Newsletter Volume 3 term 1 2025

Dear Parents,

The other members of the Auburn North staff and I hope you and your families are well.

TEACHERS, STUDENTS and PARENTS

TEACHING, LEARNING and PARENTING TOGETHER in

PERFECT HARMONY

One of the main reasons why Auburn North is such a successful, happy and special school for our students, teachers and parents is because our teachers, students and parents teach, learn and parent together in perfect harmony.

I believe a special feature of our ‘school culture’ is the way in which all members of our learning community interact with one another. The relationships between student and student, student and Auburn North staff member, Auburn North staff member and Auburn North staff member, and Auburn North staff member and parent are trusting, mutually respectful and productive.

This was evident during our recent ‘Meet the Teacher’ program. Students proudly walked their parents to their new classrooms where they introduced their parents to their 2025 teachers. Teachers, parents, and students engaged in friendly, informal conversations about the exciting year ahead and students showed their parents their work that was displayed in their classrooms.

Auburn North staff members, students and parents then enjoyed a pizza afternoon tea together.

As always, I felt so proud to be a member of the Auburn North FAMILY.

Parent involvement, engagement, and participation have always been important at Auburn North but this year the other members of the Auburn North staff and I are determined to achieve a GOAL to further increase parent participation in THEIR school and in their children’s learning.

In 2025 we want and have planned for active parent participation at Auburn North to be bigger and better than ever before and this started with our very successful ‘Meet the Teacher’ program.

There are four main reasons why we want to achieve this goal. They are:

1. RESEARCH

Research shows that active involvement and participation of parents in their child’s education have a significant positive effect on student wellbeing and learning.

One researcher found that "When parents are involved, children do better in school, and they go to better schools."

Another researcher found that "Schools that relate well to their parent communities have student bodies that outperform other schools. Children whose parents help them at home and stay in touch with school, score higher results than children of similar ability and family background whose parents are not involved."

2. OUR PARENTS

Our parents have indicated over many years that they want to be involved in the school and in their children’s learning. Findings from parent surveys have included parents reflecting very positively in relation to:

· Receiving regular information about their children’s learning through apps such as seesaw and google classroom.

· Receiving information about Auburn North via schoolzine and the fortnightly newsletter.

· Meeting with their children and the classroom teachers during three-way-conferences in term 1 and term 3.

· Participating in ‘Parents as Partners in Learning’ workshops.

· Participating in our Harmony House programs.

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3. OUR STUDENTS

Our students have told you and have told us they want their parents to be involved in the school and in their learning. They have told their teachers that they love seeing their parents in the school to attend parent-teacher meetings, to participate in three-way-conferences and ‘Parents as Partners in Learning’ workshops, to be involved in Harmony House programs, to attend gold badge assemblies when they are to receive a gold badge, and to attend the principal’s morning tea in December if they have received 60 commendations.

4. OUR AUBURN NORTH STAFF MEMBERS

Our staff members want to assist our parents be involved in the school and in their children’s learning. We want to empower our parents to have an effective role in our school and in their children’s education and we believe our 2025 parent involvement, engagement, and participation programs will assist the further development of both ‘family learning environments’ in your homes and our school-based parent programs.

I am sure you will take the opportunity to actively participate in YOUR school and in your children’s education and learning this year and every year your children attend Auburn North Public School.

LOVELY MESSAGE TO OUR

‘AMBASSADORS OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS’

We are most fortunate to have our outstanding office administration team. They are so knowledgeable and skilled, and they are delightful people who care so much about our students, parents and staff.

We call the team our ‘Ambassadors of First Impressions’ because they are the face of our school and often the first people new visitors meet when they enter our ‘Welcome Centre’.

Last week one of our students wrote a delightful short message to her fellow students about our ambassadors. Please find it reproduced below:

“Each member of the office team always helps you and me. We can trust them with anything.

They will always put a smile on your face.”

OUR 2021 – 2025 SCHOOL VISION and PLAN

As I explained in the earlier edition of our school newsletter, this year we will be following a collaborative process to assess and evaluate our present 2021-2025 school vision and school plan. Parents, students and staff will have the opportunity to participate in this important process.

Our 2021 – 2025 Strategic Improvement Plan includes our Vision, our Mission, our Strategic Directions, our Improvement Measures, and information about some of the programs and practices we will be implementing to achieve our vision.

Our 2021 – 2025 Vision is:

“To be a truly outstanding future-focused learning community for all members of the Auburn North Family.”

Importantly, we have defined what ‘future-focused’ means in our Auburn North context and developed Targets to determine if we have become ‘truly outstanding’.

At Auburn North we believe if our students are going to be successful today and tomorrow, and become successful lifelong learners then  they need to develop outstanding:

· Basic Skills in literacy and numeracy.

· Technology Skills.

· 21st Century Skills such as collaboration, and critical and creative thinking.

We also believe if our students are going to be successful, happy young people they need to live and breathe our six school values of respect, kindness, fairness, honesty, friendship, and responsibility.

Our school learning community believes our leaders, teachers, and parents need to develop the confidence, knowledge, and skills if our students are going to develop the skill set above, and if they are going to live and breathe our values.

A range of programs for leaders, teachers, and parents have been implemented and will continue to be developed and implemented to assist them develop their capacity to assist our students.

A copy of the 2021-2025 Strategic Improvement Plan can be found on our school website.

2025 SCHOOL SAYING

Each year our school develops a ‘SCHOOL SAYING’. The purpose of the ‘School Saying’ is to provide students with a clear focus for their learning, attitude, and behaviour for that particular year. During the first three weeks of each school year, students, staff, and parents can nominate ‘Sayings’ to be considered for selection.

I am very pleased to inform you that our 2025 Saying was suggested by Ms De Silva, one of our teachers.

Our 2025 School Saying is:

“Auburn North FAMILY,

It’s Our Year to THRIVE, So Let’s Make 2025

The Year of Our Lives.”

Our teachers are in the process of assisting K-6 students understand what the saying means for them and especially the word “THRIVE”. Our wonderful teachers are developing high-quality, engaging, harmonious class learning environments that will motivate and support each student “THRIVE” in the academic, social, emotional and physical areas to make THIS YEAR the year of their lives.

I encourage all parents to speak with their children and assist them develop a list of areas in which they can THRIVE this year.

CLASS REPORTS 

For your reading pleasure please see attached a class report from KS. Thank you Ms Sayan and the students from KS.

Student Leadership Conference

Will You Lead?

This was the question posed to our student leadership team last Friday 7^th March at the “GRIP Student Leadership Conference” at Rosehill Gardens. I am pleased to inform you that our students responded to this question with an enthusiastic “Yes!”

Throughout the day, students were able to reflect on this question and others while participating in a variety of different learning experiences. These included listening to different speakers, completing tasks with students from other schools, recording their ideas, and viewing and responding to leadership scenarios.

One of our students, Alpha, was even selected to go on to the stage as an actor! He collaborated with students from other schools to act out a situation where someone was able to use their leadership skills to resolve a conflict between friends. Alpha did a fantastic job.

Some of the key messages students took away from the day included:

1. Responsibility is more than following a rule, it’s about taking ownership for the standards of our school.
   This means that when we all take pride in having high standards for our school, we can actually spend less time needing to talk about specific rules. We should encourage others to have high standards for, and pride in, our school.
2. Leadership is about people, not privileges.
   This means that we should always put people and relationships first. Leadership is much more than just a badge or a list of responsibilities. Leadership is about service to others.
3. Sharing responsibility is more important than ‘showing off’ responsibility.

This is another way of saying that we can achieve so much more when we work together. Leaders should always find ways to bring people together to work towards a shared vision or finding a solution.

Throughout the day, our students were excellent ambassadors for our school and for public education. We look forward to further exploring the main themes of the day with students throughout the year.

KS Newsletter – Term 1, 2025

It has been a fantastic start to Term 1 in the KS classroom. Our students have excitingly started their school learning journey with great enthusiasm and energy, ready to embark on new adventures in  big school. The boys and girls have been working hard and trying their best in all learning activities. They have shown consistent growth while learning to embrace our school values.

In literacy, KS students have been learning to say and write different letters and sounds. Students enjoy using mini whiteboards, markers, crayons and pencils to practise writing each letter that they learn. KS students are also starting to stretch out sounds in words and blend them together. To assist students to remember the letter and sound, they complete a fun craft activity to help develop their fine motor skills by cutting with scissors, gluing and holding a pencil. These artworks are proudly displayed in our classroom.

In numeracy, KS have been focusing on counting skills, as well as diving into the wonderful world of exploring numbers from 0-10.  They are becoming mathematicians, through hands-on activities such as learning how to make, say and write numbers in different ways using counters, blocks, and coloured teddies.

KS students actively participate in our fun sport lessons on Tuesday afternoons. Students have started to demonstrate sportsmanship and teamwork skills, while demonstrating Auburn North’s school values of friendship, fairness and kindness. KS have been learning to throw, catch and kick a ball.

KS have had a marvellous start to their primary school journey, and they are looking forward to the rest of the year filled with endless learning opportunities with fun! Well done KS, we are so proud of you.

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